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this story was submitted to the People's War site by Caroline Drodge of Leicestershire Library Services on hehalf of Mary George, and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Mary George.
Location: Hinckley.

I was born in Hinckley and lived in Tudor Road. We had lots of evacuees here, from London, Coventry, Swansea, Birmingham, Scotland and other places. They arrived on the trains on Saturdays, with suitcases and name labels pinned on them. Some were from rough areas. They all had different accents from ours and we didn’t treat them very well.
The Americans were billeted here in Middlefield Lane, where Flude’s factory was. I remember going past them and saying ‘have you got any gum?’
The war wasn’t distressing; it was exciting for children like us. We had enough to eat. We had sweet coupons each month. We had powdered eggs in a box from Canada, with a Mounty picture on the front. You mixed the powder with water and made omelettes, which tasted OK. If my mother saw a queue she just joined it, and there was usually something worth having, such are rare bananas or fruit. The queues could be very long. My father brought back half a pig from a farm, and boiled it up in a gas copper in the yard. Another time he cycled to a farm and brought back 2 cockerels in a cloth bag. He was worried in case they made a noise and the police heard. There was a fish and chip shop in Tudor Road, near to Middlefield Road where the Americans were. If you saw a child heading for the shop with white, enamel buckets you tried to get in first. The buckets would be filled with chips for the Americans, and would clear out the cooked chips.
Woodbine cigarettes were sold loose. One brand, Pasha, smelt like Russian cigarettes.
We had to carry our gas masks around in boxes. They were terrible to wear, you could smell the rubber.
I remember a direct hit on Merrivale Avenue nearby. The couple had just been to a dance and were both killed. The hit caused the windows in my parent’s house in Northfield Road to shatter.
We only went to the air raid shelter once, and that was the night Coventry was bombed. It was made of tin, damp, with condensation running down the walls. It had soil on top. We sat on a series of planks with gaps in between. We came out at 3am and the sky was orange from the bombing of Coventry. It was a cold, frosty night in November. Later in the war we made a shelter under the table in the front room. It was made of steel, with netting down the sides, and a mattress underneath. I didn’t like going in.
The Masonic Hall was a hospital for Service men recuperating. There were a few Poles in the town, and they used to sometimes have fights with the Americans when they’d been drinking.
My father made boots for the military. It was a reserved occupation and he was not called up. He did fire watching in a factory in John Street.
My mother worked in the munitions factory, Sarginsons in Station Road, spray-painting the ammunition boxes. During the war she also worked overnight in Flude’s canteen.
A bomb exploded where Safeways now is and made a huge crater. The police and the home guard tried to keep people away.
We had double summer time during the war so it was still light at 11pm in summer.

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